However, despite Yugoslav communism being a much more liberal and westernised model, Zastava car production was not the best exemple. Production steadily grow and sales were a success both domestically and abroad. While earlier the wealthy would peacefully own the streets with their expensive imported cars, Tito regime in about a decade inverted that reality making every Yugoslav household have at least one Zastava. From the more luxurious 1300 to the 500, Zastava flooded Yugoslavia with copies or slightly modified Fiat models. Zastava will make the tiny 600 become iconic in the east as well. It will be in the former Jeep assembling infrastructure of Zastava that in the 1950s the regime agreed the factory to start automobile production, and the choice for partnership fall to Fiat.
While the main armament production sections were allways active, making Zastava one of the major gun producers, the new regime took some time to decide to start with automtive industry. After the war monarchy was abolished and replaced by communist dictatorship, so all major companies were nationalised including Zastava. The pioneer in automotive industry was arms industrial complex Zastava in Kragujevac which just prior WWII made a deal to assemble General Motors Jeep vehicles. Instead there were several private airplane factories, all in Serbia, Rogoarski, Ikarus, etc. During the period of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, there was no car production, only repair or parts manufacturing. The major city was capital Belgrade with 2m, second city was Zagreb with nearly 1m, then there was group of important cities like Sarajevo, Skoplje, Split, Novi Sad, Ljubljana, Pristina, all on their way for half million and all including important industries. Yugoslavs could travel specially because most people enjoyed a paid month for holludays, and same time Yugoslavia became a popular destination both in summer and winter for both western and eastern turists. Since western bands were forbbiten in many Soviet-allied countries, Yugoslav bands made much success in eastern block since they were allowed for being from a "friendly" communist country, despite playing genres totally new for them and tipically westernised. Western music was freelly accessible thus a Yugoslav domestic music scene was rich in genres.
#Step into serbian srpski za strance free#
Culturally, Yugoslavia was surprisingly free for a communist country, we had well developed cinematography often in pace with other European one even regarding taboo issues. Western products were expensive but at least you had access to them, unlike other communist countries where you couldn´t see any western shops. On the other side, Yugoslavia imported everything from both west and east. This guaranteed Yugoslav companies privileged access to big markets in strange places. Yugoslav companies operated around the world, specially in Non-Alligned countries, a crazy projected Yugoslavia pretended to lead which was supposed to form sort of 3rd bloc free from Soviet or American influence, and was formed besides Yugoslavia by India, Egypt, Indonesia, Lybia and a bunch of African and Asian nations. We had major companies in diverse economical fields and import and export was high. It worked well for decades because they obviously wanted the best for their company. They would be selected ammong colleagues and represent them in the direction board. State companies were run by a self-menagment policy, an exclusive Yugoslav experiment, in which best employers (and most loyal to the party) would form the company menagment which would include a representative from director, engeneer, technician, workers until even secretary and cleaning lady. Another advantage over other communist countries was that in Yugoslavia you could own properties and minor companies, although major ones were all state-run of course. Unlike in other communist countries, Yugoslavs could move and travel freelly, and our SFRY passport was usually well receved and we enjoyed good reputation.
.jpg "step into serbian srpski za strance")
We were like a western country but without democracy, where you were free as ong as you didn´t criticized the regime. We had Tito who wanted to make a different communist style from Soviets, so we were in between east and west, free from both and enjoying the best of each. We were communist state, but much more open than the others. I was born in 1979 in Belgrade, Yugoslav capital.
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